WilmFilm Festival back on the Riverfront

Movies you missed, movies that matter
to be shown April 23-26

The WilmFilm Festival will return to the Penn Cinema Riverfront for a third year on April 23-26 with screenings of nearly two dozen "movies that matter," including several with Delaware connections.

WilmFilm2015 will open Thursday evening, April 23, 2015 and will continue through Sunday April 28 with screenings of a diverse selection of independent films, documentaries, comedies and dramas - including six 2015 Oscar winners.

"We're making it easy for Delawareans and visitors alike to see the films they want to see, all in one place, in a luxurious theater, over a single weekend," says Barry Schlecker, the event's organizer. "WilmFilm presents 'movies that matter' - films that entertain while delivering a compelling message, and ‘movies you missed,' some great works that didn't catch everyone's attention when they were released."

The 2015 WilmFilm lineup includes:

• "Birdman" (R), best picture of the year for 2014, tells the story of a washed-up actor, who once played an iconic superhero, battling his ego and attempting to recover his family, his career and himself in the days leading up to the opening of his Broadway play. It also received Oscars for best director (Alejandro G. Iñárritu), best cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki) and best screenplay (Iñárritu, Nicholas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris and Armando Bo).

• "Whiplash" (R), winner of Oscars for best supporting actor (J.K. Simmons), best film editing (Tom Cross) and best sound mixing (Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley) is a drama about a promising young drummer who enrolls at a cut-throat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student's potential.

• "Still Alice" (PG-13), starring Academy Award-winning best actress Julianne Moore, depicts the family strains encountered when renowned linguistics professor Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children, starts to forget words and receives the devastating diagnosis that she has Alzheimer's disease.

• "Boyhood" (R), a drama filmed over 12 years with the same cast, is the groundbreaking story of growing up, seen through the eyes of a boy from age 6 through his entry into college. The film features Patricia Arquette, winner of the Oscar for best supporting actress.

• "Citizenfour" (R), directed by Laura Poitras, won the Academy Award for best documentary for its interviews with Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked classified information about illegal covert surveillance programs run by the NSA in collaboration with other intelligence agencies worldwide.

• "Ida" (PG-13), the Polish drama that won the best foreign film Oscar, is the story of Anna, a young novitiate nun in 1960s Poland who discovers a dark family secret dating back to the years of the Nazi occupation as she is on the verge of taking her vows.

• "Foxcatcher" (R) relates the dark yet fascinating story of the unlikely and ultimately tragic relationship between eccentric Delaware-born multimillionaire John E. du Pont and two wrestlers who were training for the Olympics at his estate on Philadelphia's Main Line.

• "Wild" (R), starring Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern, chronicles one woman's solo 1,100-mile hike along the Pacific Coast Trail as she seeks solace from the death of her mother, the dissolution of her marriage and her previous addiction to heroin.

• "Dear White People" (R), a social satire featuring Tyler James Williams, Tessa Thompson and Kyle Gallner, follows the stories of four black students at an Ivy League college where controversy breaks out over a popular but offensive black-face party thrown by white students.

• "The Trip to Italy" (NR), a British comedy, is a tale of friendship between two middle-aged men enjoying six meals in six different places during a road trip through Italy.

• "Two Days, One Night" (PG-13), is a dramatic chronicle of Sandra, a young Belgian mother, who discovers that her workmates have opted for a significant pay bonus in exchange for her dismissal and then has only one weekend to convince her colleagues to give up their bonuses so she can keep her job.

• "Jodorowsky's Dune" (PG-13) is a documentary telling the story of cult film director Alejandro Jodorowsky's ambitious but ultimately doomed film adaptation of the seminal science fiction novel.

• "Love is Strange" (R), a drama starring John Lithgow and Alfred Molina, two men who finally marry after four decades together, then have to give up their home and temporarily live apart after one loses his job. Both are further challenged by the intergenerational tensions and capricious family dynamics of their new living arrangements.

• "Mr. Turner" (R) is the dramatic biographical exploration of the last-quarter century of the life of the great, if eccentric, 19th-century British painter J.M.W. Turner.

• "Only Lovers Left Alive" (R) is part-drama, part-horror and part-romance, with a depressed musician reuniting with his lover, only to have their romance - which has already endured several centuries - disrupted by the arrival of her uncontrollable younger sister.

• "Keep On Keepin' On" (R) follows jazz legend Clark Terry over four years to document the mentorship between Terry and 23-year-old blind piano prodigy Justin Kauflin as the young man prepares to compete in an elite, international competition.

• "The One I Love" (R), a dramatic comedy and romance follows a couple struggling with their marriage as they escape for a weekend in pursuit of their better selves, only to discover an unusual dilemma that awaits them.

• "Life Itself" (R) is the documentary chronicling the life and career of the renowned film critic and social commentator Roger Ebert.

• "The Obvious Child" (R) is a dramatic comedy exploring how a twenty-something comedienne's unplanned pregnancy forces her to confront the realities of independent womanhood for the first time.

• "Zero Motivation" is a zany, dark and comedic portrait of a unit of female Israeli soldiers at a remote desert base biding their time as they count down the minutes until they can return to civilian life.

The festival schedule is available at wilmfilm.com, which will also have a link for online ticket purchases. Admission to individual films will be $10. Multi-show tickets also available.

Author: Scott Ciancio

About Scott: As a lifelong Delawarean I love my State and am very proud to call it home. While I love to travel, I try not to forget how many amazing things there are to see and do right here in my own back yard. Stay tuned to my blog postings and you'll learn everything from my passion for a good movie to how much I enjoy local theatre, Wilmington festivals, art and so much more.